For the past few weeks, Manchester’s streets have been filling up with posters advertising the Manchester International Festival (MIF25). Northern Soul took a scoot around the art shows to pick out the highlights. 

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Santiago Yahuarcani: The Beginning of Knowledge at The Whitworth (until January 4, 2026) is remarkable. Yahuarcani is an artist and activist from the Uitoto, an indigenous tribe living in the Amazon (now known as northern Peru.) The Uitoto stories are passed down orally – there is no written history – and these paintings are a way of preserving their stories and sharing them. The works are painted on tree bark using natural pigments. While Yahuarcani’s name is on the paintings, he is joined in his work by his wife, children and grandchildren. He views painting as just one part of his Uitoto life along with hunting, fishing and tending the land on his Chaca (farm). As well as being exquisite work, this exhibition reminds us of the true impact we all are having on our planet. Essential.  

Football City, Art United is a difficult one to get your head around, but persevere because it’s worth it. A few years ago, when Juan Mata was playing at Manchester United, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist noticed that Mata was following him on Instagram. He messaged him, a conversation started, and the germ of an idea formed from the similarities between the work of an artist and the work of football’s midfield general, the number 10. 

The first iteration was in MIF23 when Mata worked alongside Tino Sehgal and beguiled spectators with the performers’ skills – cyclist, footballer, singer and dancer. This year we have 11 artists collaborating with 11 players. It’s a team, get it? I loved Rose Wylie’s pairing with Arsenal’s Lotte Wubben-Moy and the resulting cheeky paintings and drawings. Meanwhile, Suzanne Lacy entered this project with little love of football but, with her established forensic approach to a project, she has brought out insightful responses to her question, what do women (footballers) want?

In addition, artist and fashionista Barbara Sanchez-Kane, working with legendary Mexican goalkeeper Jorge Campos (not a number 10 but absolutely a leader on the pitch), has devised a wonderfully flamboyant and interactive mascot. Then there are the architects and artists Stefano Boeri and Eduardo Terrazas who were inspired by Italian playmaker Sandro Mazzola to create a real-life footballing challenge centre-stage in Factory International’s warehouse. 

At Manchester Art Gallery, An Inheritance (until November 2, 2025) is a thing of utter joy. Artists Beckie Darlington, Andy Field and Rosabel Tan have spoken to more than 500 primary school children from all over Greater Manchester about their hopes and fears for future generations – specifically for the population of 2125. There is a film of the children sharing their thoughts, a display of everyday objects selected by them along with explanatory descriptions for people living a century from now, and the children’s thoughts and suggestions are collected together on a light wall. Heart-rending. If you miss it, don’t worry. It will be on display again in 2125.  

Then there is FAFSWAG’s FALE SĀ/ SACRED HOUSE at HOME (until August 10, 2025). The title is difficult to decipher but don’t be put off. FAFSWAG is a queer, indigenous collective from the Pacific Diaspora of Aotearoa New Zealand and the wider Moana. Forget everything you know. FAFSWAG describes the process as “reclaiming our stolen cultural inheritance and inhabiting the boundless imaginations of our ancestors, to explore the world and the cosmos through a different value system, re-centred in self-determination, radical care, and collective humanity”. A remarkable exhibition from a remarkable group of people.  

If you’re at Factory International’s building, look out for Venture Arts’ Michael Beard collaborating with Company Chameleon and Manchester Camerata. And anyone Rochdale-bound can catch Shilpa Gupta’s sound installation You Are The Place.

By Susan Ferguson

Main image: An Inheritance, Manchester Art Gallery, MIF25. Photo by Michael Pollard.

 

For more information about Manchester International Festival, click here.